Archivi categoria: Musica

The Fauxharmonic Orchestra

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The Fauxharmonic Orchestra produces concerts and recordings of orchestral music at the highest level of aesthetic and technical quality. This “orchestra” consists of the world’s finest sample-based instruments, performed in concert halls and recording studios, directed by conductor Paul Henry Smith.

Using digital instruments The Fauxharmonic Orchestra’s mission is to bring fresh and artistically meaningful experiences of orchestral music to a diverse, world-wide audience.

The conductor, Paul Henry Smith studied conducting with Leonard Bernstein at Tanglewood and with Sergiu Celibidache at the Curtis Institute of Music and in Munich. He has studied orchestration and composition with Richard Hoffmann, Lukas Foss and Steven Scott Smalley. His career is devoted to promoting and improving the digital performance of orchestral music.

Since 2003 he has been perfecting his digital orchestra, accompanying soloists, performing live concerts and creating recordings for composers and filmmakers. His live performances have been supported by Bang & Olufsen and the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra.

Now listen to

  • Edgar Varèse – Ionisation, performed live by The Fauxharmonic Orchestra at Brandeis University on October 4, 2009. Paul Henry Smith conductor.

N.A.S.A. music project

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Boing Boing Video proudly debuts a new piece from the “great god almighty could it get any more awesome?” N.A.S.A. music project, this one from two personal music heroes: Tom Waits, and Kool Keith. The track is called Spacious Thoughts, and you can pick it up on the project’s debut album, Spirit of Apollo.

NASA, short for “North America South America,” is a music collaboration project assembled by Squeak E. Clean (aka Sam Spiegel, brother of film director Spike Jonze) and DJ Zegon (Ze Gonzales, professional skateboarder).

The music video was created by Montreal-based Fluorescent Hill and can be downloaded here. More on “the making of”, and interview with artists here.

Note that this version is in HD and needs a fast connection. If yours is too slow, go see it on the YouTube site.

Pubblicato in Pop | Contrassegnato

AC/DC video in excel

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This one could be the first music video running in Excel spreadsheet. It’s an ASCII film really moving in the spreadsheet, as you can see in this video.

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Coraggiosi

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Questi hanno un bel coraggio… Ma almeno sono sinceri… E hanno della tecnica…

A proud band. Of course I don’t appreciate this kind of arrangement, but this guys are really honest. They don’t bother with false or cerebral pronouncements. They play hard. Cool!   😛

Daphne of the Dunes

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Daphne of the Dunes, by Harry Partch, is here recorded for the first time live. Originally the sound track for Madeline Tourtelot’s film Windsong, Partch recorded it alone, by the process of overdubbing. The film, a modern rendering of the ancient myth of Daphne and Apollo, is a classic of the integration between visuals and sound. Partch explains his approach to the score:

“The music, in effect, is a collage of sounds. The film technique of fairly fast cuts is here translated into musical terms. The sudden shifts represent nature symbols of the film, as used for a dramatic purpose: dead tree, driftwood, falling sand, blowing tumbleweed, flying gulls, wriggling snakes, waving grasses.”

Melodic material is short, haunting, and reoccurs motivically. Arpeggiated harmonic texture contrasts melodic sections. Meter is ever changing, almost measure for measure, with pulse sub-divisions of five, seven, and nine common. A trio of the Bass Marimba, Boo. and Diamond Marimba written in 31/16 meter is structured with 5 unequal beats per measure, the beats sub-divided into sixteenths of 5-5-7-9-5. A duet of the Boo and Harmonic Canon is written in a polymeter of 4/4-7/4 over 4/8-7/8. – Notes by Danlee Mitchell

The instruments heard in this recording:

DAPHNE OF THE DUNES

Adapted Viola
Spoils of War
Kithara II
Gourd Tree
Surrogate Kithara
Diamond Marimba
Harmonic Canons II and III
Boo (Bamboo Marimba)
Chromelodeon I
Bass Marimba
Cloud-Chamber Bowls
Pre-recorded Tape
(Note: No more than four instruments are used simultaneously.)

20 videos in B flat

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In this page you can find 20 musical videos to play together (or in any order). And the music will always be nice because they all are playing in B flat.

In Bb 2.0 is a collaborative music and spoken word project conceived by Darren Solomon from Science for Girls, and developed with contributions from users.

If your computer hold up the whole stuff, there is a Buddha Machine that plays continuously here.

Click the image for a little sample, but don’t forget to try the site.

Anthèmes 2

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Anthèmes 2 (1997), by Pierre Boulez, has evolved from Anthèmes, a substantially shorter piece for solo violin.

Andrew Gerzso has for many years been the composer’s chief collaborator on works involving live electronics and the two men regularly discuss their work together. He describes the way in which all the nuances in this nucleus of works were examined in the studio in order to find out which elements could be electronically processed and differentiated. As a result, the process of expanding these works is based not only on abstract structural considerations (such as the questions as to how it may be possible to use electronic procedures to spatialize and to merge or separate specific complexes of sound),but also on concrete considerations bound up with performing practice: in a word, on the way in which the instrument’s technical possibilities may be developed along figurative lines.

As a result, Anthèmes 2 provides us with both an analysis and an interpretation of Anthèmes: it is a text in its own right and the same time a sub-text of the earlier piece.

[notes from the CD]